Roads often become hazardous to drive in bad weather conditions such as rain or snow. Rear vehicle lights are diminished by accumulating road debris such as dirt and slush picked up by the rear vehicle wheels and distributed in the air wake of a car. Often, in such conditions, the rear lights are completely covered by dirt and slush. Thus the rear vehicle lights are not seen by the following traffic. Not visible rear vehicle lights are a major cause of accidents in bad weather conditions, because a vehicle is recognized by the following traffic too late or the braking lights or the turning lights are not seen. This problem is further exacerbated in transport trucks and buses. However, the very need to pull off the road under such conditions, to clean the lights and to return back on the road puts a driver at risk.
A large number of cleaning systems for vehicle lights and mirrors have been disclosed in the prior art. These include ultrasonic vibration to clear water from mirrors, pivoting oscillating wipers, track guided oscillating wipers, propeller driven wipers as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,887,955; 3,608,123; and 3,076,990. All these cleaning systems have in common that they are very complex. Therefore, these systems are expensive and difficult to install.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,068,770 issued to Baziuk in 1991 discloses a spherical cover surrounding the headlight and supporting a pair of wipers which clean the surface as the cover is rotated. Due to its complexity, for example to ensure safe electrical connection through the rotating spherical cover to the light, this device must be built into the vehicle structure. It is not possible to use this device as a retrofit or to remove it after temporary use. Furthermore, containing the light within the spherical cover necessitates disassembling the device for bulb replacement.
It is an object of the invention to provide a device for protecting a rear vehicle light. It is further an object of this invention to provide a device for protecting a rear vehicle light that is easily installed and can be removable.